bruce57

sdownin wrote:Another recommendation to keep in mind, given that your parent company, Amazon, offers free shipping to it's Prime members and to folks ordering more that $25 worth of merchandise at one time, you're going to need to make sure that your prices (including shipping) are still more attractive than Amazon. We've had quite a number of Woots where the Woot price was the same as or even higher than the Amazon price. So, especially for woot-offs, most of us will be looking for prices at least $5 less than Amazon. If they aren't, it makes more financial sense to buy at Amazon, instead, just to save on shipping.

I'd think the prices need to be a LOT LOWER than Amazon-plus-$5 -- otherwise, you remove the "urgency" that is the cornerstone to Woot-Off purchases. If I know I can get the same product elsewhere for about the same price, I will probably put it off for another time. Let's face it: most of the products sold on Woot (and elsewhere) are not necessities.

luke975

mamajamerson wrote:How are you seeing this as "designed to save me money"? Clearly I am missing something here and I'd love to understand.

because even when woot had $5 ships all you want till midnight central time they had trouble getting some prices lower than amazon or other sites. with this new policy even more of their prices will be higher.

and of course there's the woot offs. $5 to ship a $4 monkey? not even close to happening.

so my only guess is that they figured people wre spending too much money here. and this will curb a good portion of my spending.

to the woot staff member that screwed up the back2skool code so I could get a lot of nice things for free - thank you.

bsmith1

lichme wrote:Doesn't this mean that the cost to woot to ship will probably be lower? I would think that $5 all you could ship would be more beneficial to woot with the shopping cart then it was without. The cart and the cheap shipping doesn't HAVE to be mutually exclusive. We wantz our cake, and we wanna eat it too!

[Good work on the cart, it seems really easy to use. I like it]

This is what I was thinking. Bundled orders should make processing and shipping cheaper for woot. I guess when we asked for a shopping cart we should have said we wanted to keep the 24 hour all you can ship for $5...

labotomi

This is your site so do what you wish with your policies, but people who use the site are here to save money and probably don't really care about saving a few seconds at the expense of $5 shipping on multiple items.

You may be at the point where you'll sell all the items regardless, but I'm sure it will take more time than previously.

donslin

Well, I agree with what most of the others are saying----not a good thing and certainly not designed to save wooters money!

I have bought things I might not otherwise have bought if it weren't for the essentially free shipping on all purchases after the first of the day.

I have now retired and will have much more time to check back throughout the day and was looking forward to finally being able to monitor woot-offs all day long instead of just early morning and evening.
Since the $5 all day shipping won't be available anymore, I don't think I'll bother. Especially since there really aren't "crazy low prices" on woot anymore anyway.

Those coffin nails just keep coming and before long people will be saying "Hey, remember when there USED TO BE a website called Woot where you could get some cool things at great prices and have fun while you were obsessively shopping?"

highvolt82

andreaserben

ThunderThighs wrote:As far as the woot-off, we know this is a change. The $5 all day shipping was always stated to be a temporary thing. We did that to make up for the fact that we didn't have a cart.
...
The other advantage now is that you should see fewer boxes when ordering multiple items (if they'll fit in the same box and they're coming from the same warehouse).

Bah-humbug.
Wooters have come to love this system. Instead of the shopping cart which frankly at this point complicates things since items can sell out or the 'deadline' to buy might be reached, you guys should rather have optimized the logistics for Wooters and put a 'virtual shopping cart' out there to hold the orders before you submit it to Amazon's logistics. Just hold the further order processing until e.g. Midnight - and problem solved - less boxes, less overhead - and maintaining the benefits of $5 for impulse buyers/multiple purchase shoppers.
Essentially this would have the effect on logistics/shipping cost and everybody would be happy instead of this solution that is rather a step back factually for most shoppers no matter how you might phrase it.

Or let me be even more innovative - how about if everybody could set their own 'Shipping deadline' time that would cause new shipping cost?

jcolag

I see the good side, here, especially trying to swing fewer packages shipped (less work for me, less money out the door for you).

However, the free shipping after the first item is about the only thing that got me to look at the "Plus" deals, and I haven't really looked at them again. Figure, might as well make the shipping stretch, basically.

Also, an "I Want One" button wouldn't be out of place for time-sensitive purchases. I'm not sure how it's more fun (or egalitarian) for us or profitable for you to have us hustle through a shopping cart whenever stock starts declining.

Can't someone at the mothership loan you the (expletives omitted) "One-Click" patent for an afternoon?

highvolt82

andreaserben wrote:Bah-humbug.
Wooters have come to love this system. Instead of the shopping cart which frankly at this point complicates things since items can sell out or the 'deadline' to buy might be reached, you guys should rather have optimized the logistics for Wooters and put a 'virtual shopping cart' out there to hold the orders before you submit it to Amazon's logistics. Just hold the further order processing until e.g. Midnight - and problem solved - less boxes, less overhead - and maintaining the benefits of $5 for impulse buyers/multiple purchase shoppers.
Essentially this would have the effect on logistics/shipping cost and everybody would be happy instead of this solution that is rather a step back factually for most shoppers no matter how you might phrase it.

That's actually pretty brilliant. Although, that doesn't address the real reason they did this... to milk more money out of us.

polkastria

I can't tell you how many things I've bought in woot offs and other times thinking, "why not? I unlocked the free shipping... another few dollars won't kill me." But if that few dollars is now with more shipping costs. .. all that is gone.

ju.ju

Bye, Woot. I will miss you. My husband and I have placed 218 orders over the years. We will not take the time to go over all the deals and woot plus deals at ONE time in order to place it in the cart and check out once. You have lost a frequent shopper.

wjfreeman

$5 all day shipping was/is an important buy decision factor to me. Very important. Just like the presence or absence of sales tax. Shopping carts are not important at all.

I look at my total out of pocket cost for anything I purchase whether on-line or local, not just the advertised price, and I am not much of an impulse buyer -- even in a Woot-Off. As such reinstating a $5/cart order shipping fee will definitely affect my on-line future purchases - negatively.

cf

Boy, is there a lot of bitterness. Everyone wanted a cart and so they created one. You had to know this was coming -- they are making it more of a "real" commercial enterprise to fit in with Amazon's other holdings. The cheap shipping was just something to keep us coming back while they re-designed the business model.

I am sure that they will be very successful in attracting a steady stream of new customers to replace the old-timers who trickle away. The only thing left here is the community forums and those will probably be eliminated to help streamline the site.

It is sad but it is not a surprise. At least I will be saving a lot of money.

Now if only they would offer to leave off receipts and whatnot for gift shipments.... Not that it is really worth trying to keep it a secret anymore but still.

BuffBillsFan

TomDavidson wrote:Yeah, this is pretty much the nail in the coffin of the Woot-Off, as every item has effectively become $5 more expensive.

I don't criticize Woot often, mostly because there is not much to criticize. And most of my criticisms have been "hey - this is not as good as it could be, and maybe this might be better...", but I have to say about this one "this one sucks" (to try to get around the Woot translator, that was "t-h-1-s...won...5-u-k-5").

I've been a Wooter for many a year - I have that little black box that says I'm better than most (maybe not better, but at least more prolific), and at last tally spent over $8k with Woot, so I think I have an idea as to what I am talking about....

The idea of the shopping cart is not a bad idea. However, replacing the $5 all day shipping with it trashes the Woot-off spur-of-the-moment sales. Many, many times I have purchased the $1-5 items only after the all-day-shipping has kicked in. Not anymore.

When Woot instituted the $5 all day shipping, it opened up deals that would otherwise have been prohibitively expensive ($6 for 36 NASCAR glow sticks? DEAL! $11 for NASCAR 36 glow sticks? Bah, humbug).

Sure, the cart will open up buying multiple items from the various Woot Plus selections, but so did the $5 all day shipping. Now, if I want to consider something for later, I take the risk of losing the first item just to save $5 on the second. Most likely (just as in the reinstated penalty for Woot-Offs) I will pass on that second item.

Since their purchase by Amazon (not a bad thing overall), Woot has picked up a number of Amazon-like characteristics and products. One thing I would really like Woot to do is to ride on the Prime coat tails and either institute their own Prime-like feature using something like an annual membership fee or purchase amount/quantity over a period, or even simply granting Prime members free shipping.

Given the fact that Woot-Offs have been not-as-exciting as they have been in the past, combined with the replication of Woot-Plus items on Woot-Offs (at the same price), and now no free shipping, I'll be watching Woot-Offs a whole lot less intently unless things change. Darn shame.

SDG75006

susanproper

Fail.. So if I want to ship to 2 addreses, I now have to delete items from cart, then add back in? Really? The mothership has "save for later", pretty sure that's not patented. On the bright side, this will definitely cut down on woot purchases by me.

mrfishwhiskers

Woot will also lose site traffic as well, therefore affecting revenue. For example, I often check back because normal items do sell out some times and new ones replace them. Also woot rotates the woot plus items and I check back periodically for those. If I order something in the morning to ensure I get an item before it sells out, I won't be checking woot plus or other sites until the following day.

I'll still shop woot and look for deals, but I won't be here near as often.

mrfishwhiskers

Proposed Solution: Simply don't ship my purchases until the following day. I'm perfectly fine waiting an extra day and woot getting the benefit of batching up all my orders for the day into as few of boxes as possible. If I need it faster, I'll choose an upgraded shipping option.

woomemat

YeS! Woot has lost MUCH business b/c of this. I want a lil somehting from HOME, a lil somehting from TECH, but then it's all separated. I would try now and again to see if they fixed it, but I couldn't bring myself to pay $5 to every woot - on principle! Good move WOOT!!!

kerry8

Here's the issue with that (for me at least) - take today, for instance. Saw something I really wanted for my daughter on Kids Woot, and I knew it would sell out pretty fast, so I had to buy it quickly. Didn't have time to get through all of the other items/sites on here. Ordered it. Now I want to order something else, but I'm going to get charged another $5 for shipping, so I'm now not going to order the next item. Same thing will happen for me in a Wootoff; I will not be making impulse buys because of the shipping.

Etaria

One thing I really liked about the old system was that I could lock in what I wanted to on impulse, then when my hubby came home from work, he could see if there was anything he wanted. I really do not like having to look at everything all at once and making a decision right then.

Speed has always been key. So before, I would quick click something to make sure I have it before it sells out, then I could take my time time browsing at all the other stuff.

Free shipping is a huge mental bright light! Whether you are only saving a couple of bucks, or even breaking even, it is a huge draw-in for me, personally.

And the Woot Offs, forget those anymore. Before, the whole house was on lock-down, even our college son knew when it was Woot Off Day!

It's almost like hey, we want you as our customer and to stay with us, we will ship to you for free.

scapsinger

The lack of $5 "all day" shipping is gonna be tougher during woot-offs, because like someone else mentioned, there might be some marginal purchase on a cheaper item (say, $20 to $30 items) where if you've already paid shipping once, it puts you over the hurdle if you're debating whether or not to buy.

Maybe do something special during Woot-Offs like, buy anything during a Woot-Off and have an option on the first checkout to pay $10 or $15 for all-you-can-ship during the rest of the Woot-Off (meaning even multiple days). So all the more encouragement to buy tons of the crap you guys shovel at us over a 48-72 hour Woot-Off.

For the everyday, I like the cart idea better, although there are times where I buy something during the day, then my wife sees something at night and justifies buying it because we already have the shipping. Obviously that won't happen now unless it's something she really wants. Again, this really only matters on smaller/cheaper items where $5 shipping is a much bigger percentage of the cost of any given item.

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